After three weeks inside the Gaza Strip we got to a sort of place where we had a view of a kilometer and a half over a route that’s called the Tancher Route, in military jargon, which is a very, very central route, with two lanes going north-to-south and two lanes going south-to-north – and throughout the duration of the fighting there was an order not to lay a finger on that route.

It’s one of the [Gaza] Strip’s central vital passageways; it’s not related to the fighting zone – no shooting at it. We had the feeling this was coming down from the government, even – something very important that can’t be harmed.

After three weeks in the tank, we went up to the post and saw this route and a sort of competition got going. “You’re a gunner, let’s see if you’re a real man, let’s see if you manage to hit a moving car.”

So I picked a car – a taxi – and tried to fire a shell, but didn’t manage to hit it. Two more cars came by, and I tried with another shell or two, and didn’t hit.

The commander said, “OK, enough, you’re using up all my shells, cut it out.” So we moved to a heavy machine gun. We didn’t manage to hit cars after a few times with that, either, until suddenly I saw a cyclist, just happily pedaling along. I said OK, that guy I’m taking down.

I calibrated the range, and didn’t hit – it hit a bit ahead of him and then suddenly he starts pedaling like crazy, because he was being shot at, and the whole tank crew is cracking up, “Wow, look how fast he is.”

After that I spoke about it with some other gunners and it turns out there was a sort of competition between all sorts of guys, “Let’s see if this gunner hits a car, or if that gunner hits a car.”Did you consider what happens if there are people inside there? I mean, did that come up in the talk you held within the tank, that they’re civilians?

Me personally, deep inside I mean, I was a bit bothered, but after three weeks in Gaza, during which you’re shooting at anything that moves– and also at what isn’t moving, crazy amounts –you aren’t anymore really… The good and the bad get a bit mixed up, and your morals get a bit lost and you sort of lose it, and it also becomes a bit like a computer game, totally cool and real.

They warned us, they told us that after a ceasefire the population might return, and then they repeated the story about the old man who asked for water (earlier in his testimony the testifier described a briefing in which an incident was described where an elderly Palestinian man asked soldiers for water and then threw grenades at the forces). What were the instructions regarding [Palestinians] who return?

The instructions were to open fire. They said, “No one is supposed to be in the area in which you will be.”During the ceasefire as well?

No, after the ceasefire. There was the first ceasefire that collapsed – I don’t remember anymore, there were lots of ceasefires. But after the first one there was that danger and we asked, “Will the civilian population return? What will the situation look like now when we go in [to the Gaza Strip] again?”

And they said, “You aren’t supposed to encounter the civilian population, no one is supposed to be in the area in which you’ll be. Which means that anyone you do run into is [to be regarded as] a terrorist.”

This was a topic we had serious discussions over back in the days of [Operation] ‘Pillar of Defense’ (the eight-day IDF operation in Gaza in 2012) We held entire debates on the topic of, ‘If when you run into someone while you are conducting a house sweep you shoot immediately without thinking.’What was the commanders’ response?

A typical officer’s response was, “It’s a complicated situation, I realize a situation might arise in which innocent people get killed, but you cannot take that risk or put your comrades at risk, you must shoot without hesitation.” The instructions are to shoot right away. Whoever you spot – be they armed or unarmed, no matter what. The instructions are very clear. Any person you run into, that you see with your eyes – shoot to kill. It’s an explicit instruction.No incrimination process is necessary?

Zero. Nothing.Is there any mention of [shooting] limits? Is 100 meters the limit, 200 meters?

Not at all. The only limits are the zone perimeters between IDF forces.To avoid friendly fire?

We entered [the Gaza Strip] in two files, the entire battalion, with tanks accompanying us the whole way, right alongside us. One thing that struck me as something we had never seen before was that the tanks were firing shells while we were [walking] just a few meters from them. A flash of light, boom. What were they shooting at?

I got the impression that every house we passed on our way got hit by a shell – and houses farther away too. It was methodical. There was no threat. It’s possible we were being shot at, but I truly wouldn’t have heard it if we were because that whole time the tanks’ Raphael OWS (machine guns operated from within the tanks) were being fired constantly. They were spraying every house with machine gun fire the whole time. And once in a while blasting a shell into each house. There isn’t a single moment that you don’t hear the rumble of the tank next to you, or the next one up.Was there also artillery cover fire at the same time?

Sure, constant shelling. We started hearing it before the entrance [into the Gaza Strip].When you got near houses, was there resistance? Were you being shot at?

I don’t know, it’s possible – but during our walk there was no sign of any face-off or anything. There was a lot of shooting, but only from us.

We entered the house when it was already daylight. Half the battalion waited in the courtyard of one of those houses and then they fired a MATADOR (portable anti-tank rocket). See, the battalion commander doesn’t want to go in through the front door, so you open up a way in through the side. There was an outer wall and an inner wall, and he shot a missile, which passed through the outer wall and then through the inner side one.

A sweep was conducted in this really large house, which apparently belonged to one really big family. It was four stories high, there was enough room in there for the entire battalion. We would sleep on the floor, and we had made a round of the house to collect pillows and stuff, so there would be what to sleep on.

Whoever managed to get hold of a bed, he was set. When we left, I remember the living room was an absolute mess – but I don’t know whether that was intentional or just because when you pass through, you go in with a heavy carrier backpack and you step on stuff. You’re tired after the night, you aren’t going to start worrying about their couches or whatever.How is the sweeping of a house conducted, when you enter it?

We would go in ‘wet’ (using live fire). I could hear the shooting, everything was done ‘wet.’ When we entered this house everything inside it was already a mess. Anything that could shatter had been shattered, because everything had been shot at. Anything made of glass – windows, a glass table, picture frames – it was all wrecked. All the beds were turned over, the rugs, the mattresses.

Soldiers would take a rug to sleep on, a mattress, a pillow. There was no water, so you couldn’t use the toilet. So we would shit in their bathtub.

Besides that, the occasional hole you would see in the house that was made by a shell, or ones made as firing posts – instead of shooting from the window, where you would be exposed, you would make a hole in the wall with a five-kilo hammer and that was used as a shooting crenel. Those were our posts. We had a post like that and we manned it in shifts. We were given a bizarre order that every hour we needed to initiate fire from that room.Toward what?

There was a mosque identified [as a hostile target] that we were watching over. This mosque was known to have a tunnel [opening] in it, and they thought that there were Hamas militants or something inside. We didn’t spot any in there – we didn’t detect anything, we didn’t get shot at. Nothing. We were ordered to open fire with our personal weapons in that direction every hour. That was the order.A few bullets or half a magazine?

Before the first ceasefire they told us we were going in [to the Gaza Strip] to take down a house. We went down quick and got the gear we needed ready and then we asked, “Which house are we taking down?”

And they said, “We want to make a big boom before the ceasefire.” Like that, those were the words the officer used, and it made everyone mad. I mean, whose house? They hadn’t picked a specific one – just ‘a’ house. That’s when everyone got uneasy.

At that moment we decided pretty unanimously that we would go speak with the team commander and tell him we simply aren’t going to do it, that we aren’t willing to put ourselves at risk for no reason. He chose the most inappropriate words to describe to us what we were being asked to do. I guess that’s how it was conveyed to him. “We’re not willing to do it,” we told him.

It was a very difficult conversation. Him being an officer, he said, “First of all, so it’s clear to everyone, we will be carrying this thing out tonight, and second, I’m going to go find out more details about the mission for you.” He returned a few hours later and said, “It’s an ‘active house' (being used by combatants for military purposes) and it’s necessary you take it down, and not someone else, because we can’t do it with jets – that would endanger other houses in the area, and that’s why you’re needed.”

In the end the mission was miraculously transferred to a battalion with which we were supposed to go in, and we were let off the hook.

After the ceasefire a bulldozer and emulsion trucks (transporting the explosive liquid) and the driller (a drilling system for identifying tunnels) came to our area, and work started on the tunnels in our zone. It took two nights. At that stage, we returned to pretty much the same area in which we were stationed before, and we didn’t recognize the neighborhood at all because half the houses were just gone.

It all looked like a science fiction movie, with cows wandering in the streets – apparently a cowshed got busted or something – and serious levels of destruction everywhere, levels we hadn’t seen in [Operation] ‘Cast Lead.’ No houses.

In Shuja’iyya too?

Yes. Every house that’s standing – which of course no longer look like houses because each has a hole in it – at least one – from a shell. Bullet holes, everything riddled with holes. The minaret of a mosque over which we had previously provided cover fire was on the ground, everything was really in ruins. And non-stop fire all the time – I don’t know why they were shooting non-stop, maybe so that none of the population would return. During the whole period of work there was constant fire. Small arms fire in the background the whole time. In addition to the shelling.

There was a humanitarian ceasefire that went into effect at 6:00 AM. I remember they told us at 5:15 AM, “Look, we’re going to put on a show.” It was amazing, the air force’s precision.

The first shell struck at exactly quarter past five on the dot, and the last one struck at 5:59 AM and 59 seconds, exactly. It was amazing.

Fire, nonstop shelling of the ‘Sevivon’ neighborhood, (east of Beit Hanoun) which, if I remember correctly, ran down more to the west and south of where we were in there. Nonstop. Just nonstop. The entire Beit Hanoun compound – in ruins.

When you saw this neighborhood on your way out [of the Gaza Strip], what did you see?

When we left it was still intact. We were sent out of Beit Hanoun ahead of the ceasefire, ahead of the air force strikes. And when you went back in, what did you see of that neighborhood?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing. Like the opening scene in [the film] “The Pianist.” There’s that famous photo that they always show on trips to Poland (organized trips in which Israeli youths visit Holocaust memorial sites) that shows Warsaw before the war and Warsaw after the Second World War.

The photo shows the heart of Warsaw and it’s this classy European city, and then they show it at the end of the war. They show the exact same neighborhood, only it has just one house left standing, and the rest is just ruins. That’s what it looked like.Were you attacked while inside that neighborhood?

Yes. There was a lot of resistance, relatively. It was an area which [Hamas], at least this is what it looked like to me, had designated for combat.

They're treated like terrorists. Like a person shooting at you. There were people there who were spotted holding binoculars, or standing on a roof and looking in our direction – they're terrorists for all intents and purposes, and usually they're shot at.If you identify a person watching you from a rooftop, do you fire a shell there?

It really depends on when – at the beginning [of the operation], you didn’t wait for authorization, or you waited for authorization to make sure they were not our forces. You didn’t wait to incriminate. You identify a person, and if the tank commander considers him a suspect, you open fire.

You don’t ask for authorization, no one asks for explanations. It doesn’t feel strange because that’s what we did in nearly every battle we were in, from the start up until then.And what about people looking at you from the window of a house?

People who look at you from the window of a house that is in your designated area – they, to put it mildly, won’t look anymore.

There is what’s called in the jargon a ‘firing policy.’ It’s changed according to whether it’s [a period of] routine security or wartime. During routine, there’s targeted killings once in a while – they take place during periods of so-called routine security, too.

You still use firepower, but during those times the wish or the instruction that no uninvolved civilians will get harmed is top priority. And sometimes that overrides [the targeted killing of] a very, very senior figure, in cases where an opportunity [to attack him] arises. So it’s given up?

Yes. But during times like ‘Protective Edge,’ go ahead – his wife and kid are in the car too? Not the end of the world. It’s unambiguous.There’s that shift?

Yes, it’s by definition. The firing policies are leveled, numbered. One, two, three.What exactly are the different levels?

There are exact definitions, of firing ranges [you need to keep] from uninvolved civilians and all sorts of things like that. The more the policy is ‘permissive,’ let’s call it that, the more you’re ‘allowed’ to be less careful about uninvolved civilians. There’s also, by the way, the question of which arms you use – there are some that pose a greater threat to the surroundings, and there are more precise ones.What are the regulations in each one of these levels?

There’s, say, a certain range [from civilians] defined for the strictest level, and then that distance decreases [on the second level], and then it’s, “Don’t concern yourselves with that at all” for the most ‘permissive’ level. [The level] doesn’t stay fixed throughout ‘Protective Edge.’ [For example, it can be one level] when one is providing assistive fire to ground forces and [another during] other operations, where, say, no ground forces – which would be at risk – are involved. And during routine security periods, it’s always at the maximum.Maximum caution from harming civilians?

Right, caution. Unless, as I said, it’s an exceptional case, and then that’s [a call that’s made] at the highest ranks of decision-makers, they decide whether to drop a bomb, what size it’ll be, what’s the level of risk.They’ll use a drone for looking, but in the end it’s an F-16 that comes over and drops the half-ton [bomb]?

That’s right, but it works in exactly the same way. As a rule, in times of routine security the decision goes up to really the highest ranks – and in times of combat, it’s up to the senior officer in the field.

The briefing on rules of engagement was [to open fire at], “Anything you think you should [open fire at]...Anyone you spot that you can be positive is not the IDF.” The only emphasis regarding rules of engagement was to make sure you weren’t firing at IDF forces, but other than that, “Any person you see.”

From the very start they told us, “Shoot to kill.” As far as the IDF was concerned, there wasn’t supposed to be any civilian population there. And we really didn’t ever run into the civilian population. You were told this before entering [the Gaza Strip]?

That’s what we were told, not in those words. They gave us all kinds of briefings, warned us about the threat of explosive devices and about terrorists disguised as civilians. So we know this exists and that there’s no reason to let a civilian get up close to you. When going out into the field, the rules of engagement were, in effect, to shoot to kill upon any identification [of a person].

There were a few times where it was just too much and I had to say something. Because in two months of fighting, people make mistakes, mistakes happen. It’s our good fortune, and I mean both as a nation and as the IDF, that there are some people who know how to stand up and say, “Hang on, something bad is happening here.”

I remember one incident in which there was permissiveness of sort on the part of the upper levels with regard to wanting to open fire, and it was fortunate that somebody stepped up and said something. What was the story?

Some militant was being monitored, he had been incriminated, and he was on his way to a meeting with other militants, and on his way there he was joined by another person who started walked alongside him, and the moment their paths linked up – despite the fact that it was totally against regulations – the second guy got incriminated too, and nobody knew from where he had popped up.

So you couldn’t incriminate him ‘dry.’ And in that case, there were people there who said, “Hang on, this is no good.” And in the end the strike wasn’t carried out, it wasn’t executed. What I’m trying to say is, that sometimes even the commanders up top make mistakes, and I was present during an incident where it was stopped. I can’t know if there were incidents in which it wasn’t stopped, but in my estimation there were cases in which incriminations were made against the regulations.

Any fire by the assistance forces goes through a system of authorization. You get on the two-way radio and ask for approval. Most were approved – for us especially, since we were the first to enter [the Gaza Strip].

The commander gets on the radio, says, “There’s this building here,” the threat is assessed, it’s stated, and then comes the authorization. If there’s a hint of concern in someone’s voice – that’s justification for anything. That’s a deciding factor in any judgment call.

Approval is clearly necessary if someone comes up on the radio and you can hear shots in the background, and there’s a terrorist. If someone is coming under fire, it’s 100% certain authorization [to open fire] will be granted. Besides that, if there’s a building that poses a threat, if you say, “I feel threatened by that tall building, I want it either smoke-screened or taken down,” then it’s deemed a target, located on the maps, they get on the radio with the brigade and report it.

The feeling was that it’s all very much up to the guys on the ground – however they describe the situation to the level of oversight – the response will be in line. If [the soldiers on the ground] say “That building needs to be taken down, it poses a severe threat to my forces,” it will be shelled.

In the beginning, we weren’t granted authorization if there was any fear of [harming] civilians. In the beginning there was a lot of concern about the media and that stuff. But it’s all very subject to change because you’ve got drones, and when the artillery coordination officer raises a request [to the brigade], they sit down together and look at the visuals from the drone, and ask military intelligence, “Does anybody know anything about this?”

And then say, “Yes, you can go ahead and fire.” As long as there wasn’t any concrete information that [shooting a specific target] would be harmful to us – it’s “fire away.” But the more time that passed [since the operation started], the more immediate authorizations became.

The rules of engagement for soldiers advancing on the ground were: open fire, open fire everywhere, first thing when you go in. The assumption being that the moment we went in [to the Gaza Strip], anyone who dared poke his head out was a terrorist. And it pretty much stayed that way throughout the operation. As long as you don’t violate the perimeter of another force’s zone – in other words, risk friendly fire – you are allowed to open fire.

In the morning, the destruction wasn’t that extensive. There were some wrecked houses, and a few paths already plowed by D9s (armored bulldozers). We joined the rest of the company and instigated engagement. In the armored corps, ‘engagement’ means the entire force firing at once. We were given a number of targets – I don’t know if they corresponded to the number of tanks.

It’s so crowded in there, there aren’t any spaces between the buildings. It’s not like any normal city, where you’ll see a building next to another building and there’s a space between them. It looks like one fused layer.

And at that point were you being fired at?

No fire was directed toward us, but these were deemed ‘suspicious spots’ – which means a very lax policy of opening fire [was being employed].

That can mean anything that looks threatening to us. An especially tall building, or something that could be holding an antitank system – anything that feels threatening or fishy. Anything that doesn’t blend into the scenery, that feels artificial. Things like that, or things that we really had intelligence about.

There were lots of observation posts working alongside us, from lots of different forces, and we fired at that kind of thing. You’re allowed to shoot at pretty much whatever you want to, unless you see something that would be unreasonable to shoot at, like a school.

There were times we were told, “You see that building? That’s a school, don’t shoot there. And that over there is the Gaza amusement park – one can see the Ferris wheel from a distance – we don’t shoot at it.” But everything else that they didn’t specifically instruct us to avoid shooting at – and except for a few other places, where nearby [IDF] forces were located to avoid friendly fire – you could shoot anywhere, nearly freely.

There are also times when we said, “Let’s fire over there, worst case they’ll ask what we shot at, we’ll say it was a ‘suspicious spot,’ that it looked threatening.” That happened a few times.

Who authorizes opening fire?

Usually that would be the tank commander. Since regulations [for opening fire] were very permissive during the operation, tank commanders could authorize.

What rules of engagement were you provided with before you entered [the Gaza Strip]?

I don’t really remember what was discussed in terms of formal instructions before we entered, and after we entered nobody really cared about the formal instructions anyway. That’s what we knew. Every tank commander knew, and even the simple soldiers knew, that if something turns out to be not OK, they can say they saw something suspicious. They’ve got backup. They won’t ever be tried.